After longest game ever, tired O's tell Showalter they want to play anyway

Dan ConnollyThe Baltimore Sun

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – A few minutes after 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, shortly after the Orioles lost the longest game, time-wise, in the franchise’s history, manager Buck Showalter informally canvassed a few of veterans to see whether they wanted to be in Saturday afternoon’s starting lineup.

No one blinked.

"I talked to some of them last night, and I got a real common theme," Showalter said. "I know there is some emotion there so I wanted to wait again until this morning, because you also want to provide for that thought when they get up and say, 'What the (heck) did I tell him last night?'"

But no one had a 'Come to Buck' moment Saturday afternoon, so six of the eight Orioles who played all 18 innings in Friday’s six hour, 54-minute marathon were in Saturday’s starting lineup.

"We have a week left to play, there is plenty of off time in the offseason and we still need to win these games,” said right fielder Nick Markakis. "We still have a week and a few games to play, and we’re not out of it. So we need to grind it out."

Showalter rested just Matt Wieters, who caught 292 pitches in Friday’s game, and 35-year-old second baseman Brian Roberts, who has been plagued by injuries in the past few seasons. Friday's other starter, outfielder Michael Morse, played the first six innings before being replaced by Chris Dickerson in left field. With right-hander Alex Cobb on the mound Saturday, lefty Nate McLouth got the start, as expected, over Morse.

Starting with Tuesday's game in Boston, Wieters had caught 47 innings in four games. As Friday’s game progressed, Showalter said he kept an eye on Wieters, who also caught all 18 innings in a game last September in Seattle and all 17 in a game last May in Boston.

"I kept looking at him after every inning after the 12th inning," Showalter said. "He’d come in and I'd look at him, and he’d look up at me with those big eyes and wink and smile and go, 'Got it. Good. That’s all.'"

Steve Clevenger started at catcher and Alexi Casilla received the nod at second base Saturday. Showalter said he wanted to get Casilla in a game and infielder Ryan Flaherty hasn’t fared well at Tropicana Field (1-for-19) in his career. He also believed Roberts could use a breather, but knew the veteran wouldn’t ask for it.

Showalter said he wasn’t worried about how the excruciating loss would affect his club's mindset the rest of this series against the Rays. And his players echoed those statements.

"I don’t remember last night already. That's how tiring it was, and I didn’t even play the whole game," McLouth said. "It was much more tiring than it was deflating."

McLouth said he went to sleep around 4:30 a.m.; Showalter said he "turned off the lights" around 6.

Markakis estimated he was asleep by about 3:30 or so – but the slumber didn’t come easily.

"I laid down, but even though you played 18 innings and it’s 2:30 in the morning and you’re so tired, it’s kind of hard to fall right to sleep," Markakis said. "You've got to kind of wind down and lay there and stare at the ceiling for a little bit."